THE SUSPENSORY BILL.
MR. GLA.DSTONE curiously misunderstood the whole point of Lord Randolph Churchill's Horatian quotation on Thursday. When he pointed to Mr. Glad- stone as he uttered the words,— 4..Haeo Janus BUMMUB ab imo
Perdocet ; haec recinunt juvenes, dictata senesque,"
his point was that Mr. Gladstone was the Janus,— the god of double aspect,—who with one countenance warns the nation of the dangers which beset so gigantic a task as untwisting the threads which unite the Established Church of England and of Wales, and again with wholly altered visage inculcates on young and old alike the duty of winning votes for Irish Home- rule. The point on which Mr. Gladstone chose to compli- ment Lord Randolph, that he had taunted him with his age, was not Lord Randolph's point at all, and could have had no meaning, for Mr. Gladstone could not have been at once the person who inculcated this doctrine and one of those, whether young or old, on whom it was incul- cated. But there was a point,—and, to our minds at least, a serious point,—in the suggestion that Mr. Gladstone bears one aspect when he is thinking of the interests of the Church and people and of the interests of the Church and people only, and another aspect when he is the "old Parliamentary hand," meditating how he shall win votes for the darling scheme of his old age. We have often said, and we would say it again, that if, after lengthened and mature consideration, statesmen can assure them- selves that the Establishment in Wales, or any sub- stantial section of the Kingdom, injures, instead of advancing, the interests of popular religion, it would be the duty of an impartial statesman to propose to the English people to effect disestablishment in that section of the Kingdom. But it does seem to us most unfortunate that one who has pointed out with such masterly foresight the extreme difficulty of the task of separating the Church in Wales from the Church of England and Wales, and i who s evidently profoundly aware that a change is ta'kin g place in Wales year after year which may render that task less and less likely with every decade that elapses to be beneficial, should be in such a hurry to conciliate Welsh votes, that he anticipates the judgment of Parliament on the great issue itself by a Suspensory Bill of this kind, which interferes, and interferes gravely, with the efficient working of the dioceses to which the Bill applies, before any resolve can be taken on the main question itself. We are aware, of course, that Mr. Gladstone questions the extent of the unsettlement which the Suspensory Bill, if it passes into an Act, must cause ; but he does not, and cannot, dispute that it will cause a very great deal of un- settlement. Indeed, if it did not, the Bill would not answer its purpose at all. It is not proposed to go so far as the Irish Church Suspensory Bill, passed after the House had already decided on legislation, went. It is not proposed to destroy the machinery of the Church in Wales, as it was in Ireland ; but it is proposed, of course, to make all the arrangements for benefices which fall vacant purely temporary, and so to prevent vested interests from springing up. Now, every one knows that a powerful man will not take, and ought not to take, an appointment which there is very little chance of his being able to retain. Pro tempore makeshifts throughout Wales wherever a vested interest may lapse, would disorganise the Church greatly, and that, too, for the purposes of a prospective Act which, in all probability, this Government will never have the chance of carrying. No one has used stronger langnage than Mr. Gladstone against the conduct of those who hold out hopes of disestablishing a Church without having the fullest confidence that they can redeem those promises. Has he any such confidence in this case ? He has staked everything on the Irish Home-rule Bill, and now, like the player who plays double or quits, he is staking the prospects of the Church in Wales on the issue of that other controversy. If he carries this Bill, and fails in the other, his Government will disappear ; and yet the Church in Wales will be dis- organised for "a limited period." And the very statesman who once said: "I am not prepared in any shape or form to encourage the increase of expectations which it would be most unworthy, most guilty, most dishonourable to entertain on our part lest we should convey a virtual pledge," now lends his sanction to a proceeding which he is well aware that he is very unlikely to have the power to justify by subsequent legislation. We deeply regret this fanaticism of Mr. Gladstone's, which leads him to take such a step as this in order to conciliate the Welsh Members. He is not only doing what must profoundly disorganise the Welsh Church, without effecting his purpose, unless his Administration is far more fortunate than most of his own followers expect it to be, but he is fostering that cry for Welsh Home- rule which is every day pledging the party which he leads more and more to a policy of artificial, and merely logical, Federalism, that will do more to ruin the United Kingdom than any other political craze of the day. Mr. Gladstone spoke his true mind when he protested against holding out to Wales premature hopes of Disesta,blishment. He speaks only out of his self-willed determination to carry Irish Home-rule at any cost, when he casts the interests of the Established Church in Wales into the scale by which he hopes to turn the balance in favour of his passionately desired end.
Previous page
